Favorite cluster chords?

[wanner251 17]

John Williams is well-known for his creative use of cluster chords in his various scores, especially in the string section. What are some of your favorites?

Some of mine are at the beginning of "Eye to Eye"...

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Example?

[wanner251 17]

The opening of this....

http://www.youtube.c...bed/CwvzKdJShW0

Especially that second chord....

[Uni 306]

And you might describe, for the less musically-trained among us, what exactly a cluster chord is.

In this specific example, are you referring to the slightly dissonant effect in the high strings? That does sound very Williams. It's a lot like the opening swell to Close Encounters, and some passages from Empire of the Sun.

- Uni

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Uni 306]

Thank you, Lawrence Welk. . . .

- Uni

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[wanner251 17]

Well, a cluster chord is mostly the dissonant sounds of notes that are much closer together than the usual sonorous intervals away. However, it is not necessarily that simple, because in clusters, one can also span the breadth of the range of notes to achieve this as well. For example, let's take an arbitrary B-C-D cluster. You can play them on the piano right next to each other, but you can also play a lower B, a middle C, and a higher D. It achieves a cluster, but not so closed and confined sounding... it becomes more open, but still dissonant.

I find, too, that John Williams will use this technique with his more sonorous chords as well, to give them a more mysterious quality. Sometimes he will have C-E-G (major chord) but add another note that is very close to the others, like a C# or Eb or G#. This doesn't really constitute as a cluster chord, but it utilizes the technique of it in a very interesting way.

In this specific example, are you referring to the slightly dissonant effect in the high strings? That does sound very Williams. It's a lot like the opening swell to Close Encounters, and some passages from Empire of the Sun.

Yes.... The interesting thing I find, is that John Williams seems to have ones that sound almost signature to him alone...

It's the musical equivalent of a clusterfuck.

That made me laugh out loud!

[Uni 306]

He does this a lot in the latter parts of the CE3K score as well. Much of the alien encounter has cluster chords hanging over the setting, which—even when included in serene, calming sorts of orchestrations—gives the whole scene a slightly . . . well, alien feel to it. (One could make the case that this is the score in which he made the best use of the technique.)

- Uni

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Does Howard Shore use cluster chords in LOTR or The Hobbit?

[KK 3,307]

Shore is a huge fan of tone clusters. He's used them quite a bit in Middle-Earth if a bit excessively in the Hobbit. Its become an integral part of his style.

I particularly love the use of cluster chords (lots of untapped potential) and Williams certainly has his own unique way of executing them.

[wanner251 17]

Does Howard Shore use cluster chords in LOTR or The Hobbit?

Nah....

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[wanner251 17]

Steef drove him to suicide... :-(

[KK 3,307]

Does Howard Shore use cluster chords in LOTR or The Hobbit?

Nah....

Uhmm....he does use tonal clusters. You don't have to like them, but they're certainly there

[wanner251 17]

Thanks... sarcasm is so unclear sometimes with only text to express it.

[KK 3,307]

This poor fool has a poor sense of humour

That and a good dosage of paranoia can lend to some ill-favoured posts.

[wanner251 17]

I think both of our uses of sarcasm have somehow cancelled each other out.... haha!

[Datameister 2,037]

Williams has used straightforward cluster chords to wonderful effect, but I think that what wanner251 brought up is much more common in his work. Williams likes to make the dissonance a little more subtle by expanding tone clusters and polychords and whatnot over perhaps several octaves, resulting in some very interesting tonalities. It's both exhilarating and frustrating to study passages like these, because when you play through what's written in the score, it sounds so right, but it's so hard to figure out why.

[wanner251 17]

Very well put.

[lostinspace 8]

JW favourite chord during the 70's and 80's had to be the triad with and added 6th or 7th. Think superman in the middle section instead of having just an F major chord he adds the 6th degree in so F A C D . In Empire strikes back this is used again C Eb G Ab . It is also used to great effect in the Raiders march. In fact the whole piece relys on this "added note" in the horns for example C Eb G Ab again ( the Ab is the suspense/note).

On the subject of chords, I should point out that Goldsmith was a great user of suspense chords take vacations over from River Wild

you have pure suspense ( although it's so repetitive it's boring to listen to outside the film!) F Db F C G and the clash is the c and Db; this is a really innovative chord though.

Another classic Williams chord is in Catch me if you can ( I think it's jazz based) where you have say a G major chord G B D in the right hand and an F# in the bass , this always wants to resolve though (usually down)

Quote:

Well, a cluster chord is mostly the dissonant sounds of notes that are much closer together than the usual sonorous intervals away. However, it is not necessarily that simple, because in clusters, one can also span the breadth of the range of notes to achieve this as well. For example, let's take an arbitrary B-C-D cluster. You can play them on the piano right next to each other, but you can also play a lower B, a middle C, and a higher D. It achieves a cluster, but not so closed and confined sounding... it becomes more open, but still dissonant.

end quote

Very true. You can make a dissonant chord cluster sound much less dissonant by spanning the notes across octaves eg D E F you could rearrange as

D F and E . Also cluster chords very high and low are more common because as you go higher or lower in frequency its harder for our ear to discern the pitch,

it sort of becomes more percussive ( non pitch related)

[Quintus 5,399]

There's loads in Jaws is there not? For instance during the Indianapolis speech.

Definitely a Williams trademark, and quite different to those of Shore's since the former's are decidedly more punctuated and shrill on the ear than those what we hear in LotR, where they are often just utilised for purposes of typical Shore underscore padding.

[wanner251 17]

I've been meaning to go through some of the scores I have and look at how they are constructed. There must be somewhat of a common bond between them.

[Thor 7,478]

Anything by Elliot Goldenthal -- the master of this particular sound!

[KK 3,307]

Williams tends to space out his tonal clusters, often straying from the effect of dissonance and going for means of strengthened harmonic support instead. The effect is wonderfully potent in his emotional music.

I also feel that this technique has become more apparent in his recent years, especially with his classical scores.

I love Memoirs of a Geisha, and recently I obtained the Suite for Cello and Orchestra. And I was blown away by what he does with the thematic material. It was extraordinarily beautiful to hear how he shifts the harmonic textures to add a far more alluring quality to these already great themes.

[Walid 3]

If we're talking chromatic clusters (at least 2 notes, 1 semitone apart), then I would add my vote to Howard Shore's fantastic use of the wide high string voicings (but harmonically clustered). A nice example is in this piece, at 6:28 (note the A# violins at top, A natural and D# below).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L-NKrdSl4U

You would be amazed how much clusters Howard Shore uses. Heard from my friend (who've seen the score sheets used for the recordings) that basically every cue in the soundtrack has some form of clustering going on.. hah. That's why I love shore... bloody genius. Silence of the lambs is very similar in those tones too...

[KK 3,307]

Welll pointed Walid. I too am a fan of Shore's use of chromatic cluster in general. I loved them in LotR, although I thought they were used a bit excessively in The Hobbit.

[Walid 3]

tell me about it. I really think he should've gone for much more of the tone of the book (Hobbit), and not of LotR with his choral and harmonic writing. Was a bit disappointed actually...

but not one cluster, be it strings or woods, less in lotr!